


Those Golden Eyes

by NeverNooitNiet



Series: burning and fierce-eyed [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Character Study, Crowley's a bit depressed at one point and i'm sorry, Fluff, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 03:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17910992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverNooitNiet/pseuds/NeverNooitNiet
Summary: Sometimes, Aziraphale would wonder just what Crowley’s pupils would do if he were to— oh, but that was dangerous ground.Crowley's eyes, throughout the centuries.





	Those Golden Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 日本語 available: [日本語訳：その金色の瞳 - Those Golden Eyes by NeverNooitNiet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18313841) by [pinecrunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinecrunch/pseuds/pinecrunch)



> 100% inspired by that kitty eyes crowley meme on tumblr tbh, thanks for reading!!

They did not, as a rule, talk about what Crowley had been like before the fall.

At first, this had been Aziraphale’s doing, because he would rather have died than admit that the demon could be anything like him, _had_ been like him. Later, in the tentative, early stages of the Arrangement, it had seemed like a bit of an awkward question to ask, a bit too personal, and then eventually things progressed to the stage where Aziraphale reckoned it was rather too late _now_ , that it would be a dreadfully strange thing to bring up all of a sudden. And Crowley himself never felt the need to broach the subject, and so it faded, gradually, into taboo, a line that was not crossed. The weight of six thousand years of silence was rather a heavy thing.

Aziraphale found that on the whole, he was all right with this. Whoever— whatever— that angel had been, they hadn’t been _Crowley_ , with his wit and his tentative smile and his twitchiness and those slitted sunset eyes.

Ah. Well. Aziraphale supposed that was one thing he was sort of curious about— Crowley’s eyes, and what they had looked like, before. He certainly couldn’t remember seeing or hearing of any slit-eyed angels.

Come to think of it, though, Aziraphale doubted there were any other slit-eyes demons, either. Crowley seemed utterly unique, those burning yellow eyes another lingering reminder of the punishment he had received for his work in the garden, the thing that caused his hiss and the lingering scales that still clung to his body and his stubborn, _dangerous_ cold-bloodedness. Another thing that they didn’t talk about, of course.

Aziraphale wondered, on worse nights, whether he and Crowley had ever spoken in Heaven. What colour Crowley’s eyes had been, then.

With most angels—and demons— it worked like this: your corporation was utterly human, but your true nature tended to bleed through it, just a bit, strong ink seeping through damp paper, smudging. It was why so many of their co-workers had a tendency to look ever so slightly _off_ on their rare visits to Earth, although physically, there was no sign that they were anything other than what they appeared to be. And it was so tragically unfair, then, that bright, wonderful Crowley, who wanted more than any of the rest of them— more than Aziraphale, even— to blend in, was forced to stand out most of all.

Did Crowley really think that Aziraphale didn’t understand perfectly well why he did all of it? The clothes, always scrupulously in fashion, his refusal to be anything but young and whatever was currently considered handsome. Crowley wanted to be human, to _belong_ , with a deep, aching sincerity. To be free, yes, but more than that, to be normal.

The scales were easy enough to hide with clothing, and Crowley had long since mastered the art of burying his hiss, although it would occasionally make a reappearance when the two of them got really, properly plastered. The eyes, however, were a different story.

Aziraphale could remember the olden days— the _very_ olden days, you understand— when Crowley didn’t have eyelids, even, and his eyes had been on permanent, unblinking display. When people were a little more naïve and a little more willing to accept the unknown and there weren’t enough humans to do much damage, anyway. There were _looks_ , of course, looks of hatred and horror, present from the start, and Crowley saw them all. He had no alternative.

Oh, he had grown himself a pair of eyelids eventually, of course, making the lashes as long and dark as he could manage, and then _batting_ them at Aziraphale. Insufferable, honestly. Crowley had claimed it was a mixture of aesthetic and convenience— the world was still mainly desert at this point, and getting sand in one’s eyes could be Hell. But Aziraphale could see, even back then, how desperately Crowley clung to the fleeting respite of closed eyes, of being able to hide, even for a moment.

Still, Crowley’s eyes were on display, mostly, yellow from end to end, dappled and strangely bright— beautiful, almost, the way his slit pupils slashed across them, the way they turned solid gold in bright sunlight. In those first few millennia, Aziraphale had learned to read those eyes, gauge Crowley’s mood from the cant of his pupils— contracting to a narrow, angry slit when upset, dilating to almost roundness when relaxed or happy (or drunk), oddly feline. Aziraphale missed that, Crowley’s wide, dark gaze, made _softer_ , somehow, easier, all too often accompanied by a lopsided, surprisingly earnest grin. And they were so dreadfully _dynamic_ , switching from the barest slits to full circles in a heartbeat. Sometimes, Aziraphale would wonder just what Crowley’s pupils would do if he were to— oh, but that was dangerous ground.

Of course, everything had changed the first time the humans had killed Crowley.

Aziraphale hadn’t been built to fight. He seemed to have been specifically designed to preen over old books, and to stare passive-aggressively, and...and to forget about cups of tea.  
This wasn’t to say that he couldn’t fight, of course. He could, and a fair bit better than Crowley at that. He always just felt slightly uncomfortable doing so, that was all.

But they _had_ fought, a few times, right at the beginning. Aziraphale had been oddly surprised to find that he had absolutely no desire to kill Crowley, and even more surprised to find that the feeling was mutual. But in the end, it was what their superiors expected, after all, and eventually there was no way of avoiding it any longer. And Aziraphale would never forget the look on Crowley’s face, the naked fear in those yellow eyes, blown wider than Aziraphale had ever seen them, the black threatening to swallow them whole. How those vibrant eyes had become empty and glassy, indifferent, how Aziraphale had just sat there, afterwards, blood on his hands and the taste of sick in his mouth, waiting for him to come back, for those eyes to go bright again. He hadn’t known it would feel like that. It wasn’t supposed to feel like that, so dreadfully permanent and _near._

It was supposed to fill him with holy purpose, and Crowley was supposed to be _there,_ with him, a grating presence, but a familiar one.

He hadn’t been sure if Crowley would come back, that first time. He’d hated the fact that he cared.

Crowley did come back, of course, and his eyes had gleamed when he’d pulled Aziraphale in for a hug and then stabbed him through the heart. Fair was fair, after all. But Aziraphale kept purposeful discorporations to a minimum, after that, and was blessedly relieved— and, despite everything, a little surprised— when Crowley responded in kind, and an unofficial sort of ceasefire began. It wasn’t the Arrangement— that would be a long while later. But it was a start.

Crowley was still discorporated a fair bit, without Aziraphale lifting a finger—well, they both were, in all fairness, but Crowley seemed to have a real knack for it.  He fell off horses and flailed and drowned with an alarming frequency all of his own accord, to the extent that Aziraphale once received a commendation for it. And once they decided to explore this planet of theirs a bit more, they soon found that Crowley seemed to be exceptionally bad at coping with low temperatures, and he lost a few more perfectly good corporations to hypothermia within a matter of months. Below, Crowley had told him, were not pleased, but Hell had grudgingly conceded that all this discorporating certainly made it seem as though Aziraphale was a very formidable opponent, and to begin with, they were always eager to get Crowley a new body as quickly as possible, so that he could continue wiling. And Crowley himself had never been too bothered about these sorts of discorporations, either. There was no _intent_ behind it, after all. No-one to really blame but himself, for not looking after his property well enough. Nothing to be done.

This changed.

It wasn’t Aziraphale’s fault, and yet it was. He had been spreading religious fervour in a small settlement on the banks of the Tigris— he’d had a quota to fill, some newfangled scheme Gabriel had been trialing at the time, the whole thing had been terribly annoying— when Crowley had, quite suddenly, made a reappearance.

They found an inn, found a table, gotten themselves some date wine. The man who came to serve them— a brawny fellow, one of Aziraphale’s new converts—regarded Crowley’s eyes, narrow slits in the warm afternoon light, with no small amount of suspicion, but his respect for Aziraphale seemed to outweigh his fear, and he served them quickly and left them to it, an attitude that neither the angel nor the demon seemed to mind one bit.

Aziraphale swirled his wine around and examined his— well. What _was_ the proper term? _Adversary_ already seemed a little too harsh, _friend_ too intimate, and _partner_ highly inappropriate for a number of reasons. Crowley was just his— his _Crowley._

Aziraphale wondered if the combination of the wine and the sun was rotting his brain, if that was the best he could come up with. He sighed.

“What was it this time? They blend together,”

Crowley shrugged, eyes lazy half-ovals.

“Later, angel. ‘M not drunk enough for this particular story just yet.”

And he held out his hand for more wine, and Aziraphale was happy enough to oblige him.

Eventually, they got sloshed enough that Crowley slurred out a painful-sounding story involving a cliff and some rather pointy rocks, Aziraphale told him about a nasty encounter with some leopards, and the sky had long since pressed dark and cool around them when they finally, unsteadily, stood up to say their goodbyes.

They would be parting ways for the night, of course. Whatever their relationship might have evolved into, there were _limits_ , imposed by what they were. Aziraphale and Crowley might not need to sleep, but after a night of heavy drinking, Aziraphale thought it might be pleasant. He had slept a lot more, back then, had grown fond of sleep, even. He just didn’t quite trust Crowley to be in the same room— or indeed the same establishment— while he did so.

Gabriel would lose his head if he found out Aziraphale was letting his guard down to go to sleep on the same _continent_ as a demon. But then, what Gabriel didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

This wasn’t a personal reflection on Crowley, Aziraphale thought as he made his way alone through the night-quiet streets. It was business, because like it or not, that was the way things were. Even if he sincerely hoped that Crowley didn’t bear him any ill will personally, orders were orders, and you never really knew, did you? And besides, he was certain that Crowley had no desire to leave himself open and exposed to an angel, either.

Aziraphale fell asleep quickly and deeply, still mildly inebriated. He would miracle away his hangover in the morning, but he expected to sleep soundly through the night, and so he did.

Until he was woken by the sound of screams.

Aziraphale lurched upwards from his simple straw bed— he was trying to show these people the value of a simple, pious lifestyle, and it simply would not do to be _decadent_. His head swam uncomfortably for a moment, before Aziraphale purged all remnants of the previous night from his body. He took a deep breath— _what’s happening is it Crowley this is all your fault for being stupid enough to trust a demon—_ and then went to see what all the commotion was about.

It wasn’t Crowley, and yet it was. The demon didn’t appear to have incited any sinning or violence, per se, and yet— it took Aziraphale a moment to grasp what he was seeing. A group of men had gathered, many of them Aziraphale’s little projects, his redeemed souls, his _quota,_ forming a circle and jeering. The sallow-faced man who had served them the previous night appeared to be a ringleader of some sort, laughing uncontrollably, thin and high and wild, oddly eerie. And in the middle of their circle, bloody and limp, eyes half-closed and distant in a way that Aziraphale had never seen them, as though the demon had already half slipped out of his corporation, lay Crowley.

For the first time, Aziraphale thought, the demon looked _old_ , and weary, all the usual hopeful, crackling energy drained out of his long limbs.

He would almost have said that Crowley looked _broken_ , his face bruised and hair matted with blood, his right arm at a worrying angle, but he did not want to admit that, even to himself.

He was very still. Aziraphale swallowed painfully and barged forward, breaking the circle.

“Just _what_ do you think you’re doing?” he asked sharply, his voice a few octaves higher than he would have liked.

The sallow man shrugged, and that dismissive movement made Aziraphale far angrier than he ought to have been. He had the collar of Crowley’s tunic clenched in one fist, and this appeared to be all that was preventing the demon from simply slumping over and collapsing onto the dusty earth.

“ _That_ —“ the man turned his head and spat at Crowley with bitter intensity— “is not human. It’s a _monster._ Look at those eyes.”

Aziraphale stared hopelessly at the man, trying to come up with something, anything to say that might help Crowley.

“I—“ his voice shook slightly, but it could easily have been shaking with righteous anger— “I thought I had made the importance of a pious, holy lifestyle clear. I thought you had—“

The man nodded vigorously.

“Oh, yeah, you did,” he said. “Very convincing.”

Aziraphale sagged with relief.

“Oh, excellent, so if you’ll just put him down then, divine mercy and love and all that—“

The man shook his head, long hair tumbling over his eyes, and hoisted Crowley slightly higher.

“Bit more concerned with the divine _retribution_ , myself.”

Aziraphale’s heart was racing— to very little effect, of course, but he held his ground, letting the faintest trace of polite fury slip into his voice.

“And might I ask just what Cr— he did to earn this retribution of yours?”

The man considered this lazily. “What did it _do_? To me, nothing, yet. But this creature is wicked and unnatural. I’m doing the good— the _right_ thing simply by removing it from God’s earth.”

_No, you’re_ not, _you stupid man,_ Aziraphale wanted to shout. He felt sick, his stomach lurching uncomfortably downwards. What these men were doing, that terrible glazed expression on Crowley’s face, that was _wrong_ , Aziraphale knew with a deep, thudding certainty. Crowley was a demon, yes, but he couldn’t very well do anything about that _now_ , could he? And demon or not, he hadn’t actually done anything worse than perhaps stagger drunkenly down the street.

Aziraphale always felt deeply uncomfortable when he saw humans sinning, which was odd, coming from someone who spent most of his time in the presence of a demon. But whenever Crowley committed any sort of sin, that was because it was his _job_. Because there would most certainly be consequences if he didn’t. And besides, Crowley certainly never derived such base enjoyment from it.

There was also the uncomfortable knowledge that these humans didn’t have to be doing this. That they had _free will_ , after all. That they were doing this because they wanted to.

He wanted to shout at the man, to scream, but that wouldn’t help, would only make things worse. But what _could_ he do?

A sudden cold awareness spread over Aziraphale, prickling at his shoulder blades. He was an angel, after all. He could, he realised, do lots of things. He could miracle their windpipes shut, or simply miracle them out of existence. He could…

This— using their powers on a human, _killing_ a human, was uncharted territory, something that neither Aziraphale, nor, to the best of his knowledge, Crowley had ever done before. A line that was not crossed.

And yet here, now, as a trickle of dark copper dripped down from the corner of Crowley’s mouth, Aziraphale knew with a dread certainty that he would cross it. For Crowley. For a _demon_.

Aziraphale looked over at his friend, a strange sense of calm spreading over the soft expanse of his face, and hoped that Crowley could read the unspoken question carved into the lines of his face.

Crowley did, his eyes slitting narrow in horrified fear. He shook his battered head slightly, winced, opened his mouth to say something—

—the circle of men, alarmed by this turn of events, shouted and swarmed closer—

—Aziraphale could see what was going to happen next, knew it. But Crowley didn’t want him to— to _get involved,_ not like that, so all Aziraphale could do was watch in dull horror— it was all going so _fast_ now—

—as the sallow-faced man snapped Crowley’s neck with a slick _crack_. He made sure to make direct eye contact with Aziraphale as he did it. Crowley’s limp, empty body had spilled down onto the weathered, cracked expanse of earth, blood soaking into sand and soil, face down.

Once the others had cleared off, Aziraphale had tentatively picked his way over to Crowley’s body, turned him over as gently as he could.

Crowley had screwed his eyes tight shut. Underneath the blood and the bruises, he could have been perfectly human.

Things changed, after that. Of course they did.

Aziraphale thought of his feelings, of his willingness to decimate those men, because while killing them might not have been Right, it would have felt right. It would have felt like justice. And then, hadn’t those men tried to justify killing Crowley as the moral thing to do, because of what he was, despite murder being blatantly against the Ten Commandments?

And if he, an angel, had instinctively turned to violence, while a demon had counselled mercy… what did that say about him? What, come to think of it, did that say about _Crowley_?

Aziraphale had always thought in black and white, good and bad, Heaven and Hell. That was how things worked, after all. This… complicated that. In a way that he did not like, and that could not possibly be good for him.  Aziraphale let out a deep whistling sigh, did his best to bury his thoughts and doubts as deeply as possible.

He knew, instinctively, that each and every one of the men who had harmed Crowley would be going to Heaven, and he resented that.

He got away from the settlement as quickly as he could, and found a different town with a different inn, in which Aziraphale made sure to get himself very, very drunk. To stop thinking quite so much.

Something, fundamentally, had changed in Aziraphale’s view of the world and of his role in it. He didn’t like it one bit.

When Crowley finally made a reappearance, they hugged again, and this time no-one was stabbed in the process.

But there was a change in Crowley, too, a subtle tension, and shortly after this, the demon began trialling different ways to hide his eyes.

He tried cloaks and hoods and veils, hats if they were nice enough, and a helmet if he and Aziraphale were unlucky enough to be involved in a war at the time. But it was as though a floodgate had been opened, now. Aziraphale knew of a few more incidents— stonings and burnings and drownings, and had been a horrified witness to fewer. He was certain that there had been more that Crowley wasn’t telling him about.

Crowley’s makeshift disguises were shoddy at best, but it was all he could do. And if he seemed a little more skittish, and if they spent less time together as Crowley seemed to take longer and longer to come back from discorporations, Aziraphale kept his mouth safely shut. He wasn’t sure if this was out of politeness, or mild hurt, or fear, over what he had almost done. All the lines they were crossing.

The twelfth century, all told, had been a fairly decent one, at least as far as Aziraphale was concerned. Relatively quiet, no major wars going on in Britain, where he had been stationed at the time , and best of all, he’d been involved extensively in helping with the writing and illumination of The Winchester Bible: a beautiful book, with the added benefit that he was actually doing that Above would approve of, for once. And it was while he was hurrying on an errand to acquire more ink for some of the remaining illustrations, mind wandering to the swirling Latin text, head high in the clouds, that he ran smack-bang into Crowley.  
His first thought was surprise. He hadn’t seen the demon in almost a century, and it hadn’t slipped his mind that this was possibly why everything in Britain had been so peaceful for the last 100 years, which was a nasty thing to think, but, well, it went with the profession, didn’t it? And the sudden, increased frequency of Crowley’s absences gave Aziraphale more time to— sort things out in his head, as it were. To think in a way that Heaven would approve of.

All those good, holy thoughts— all the thoughts that were _expected_ of him— had always had a remarkable tendency to bugger off whenever Aziraphale found himself in Crowley’s immediate vicinity.

Crowley, for his part, didn’t look too pleased to see him, but remained pressed up awkwardly against Aziraphale’s body, as though if he moved the angel would smite him. He was- he was very close, Aziraphale realised, faint alarm bells ringing somewhere in the back of his mind. His current corporation was slightly shorter than the angel’s, and his hair was the usual black wave that he seemed to favour. After what felt like an eternity, the demon finally untangled himself from Aziraphale, scrambling into a dark corner of the street. Aziraphale followed, finally able to get a good look at him. He was scrawny, all jutting bones and hard angles, and his blazing yellow eyes were obscured by—

“What on _Earth_ are you wearing?” Aziraphale peered at the bizarre apparatus on the demon’s face. He’d seen humans place lenses over their eyes a few times in order to see better, a recent Italian invention, he believed, but Crowley’s eyewear seemed to have the opposite effect— they were a cloudy grey colour, quartz most probably, smooth, circular disks of stone secured onto Crowley’s face by a thin golden frame, completely obscuring his yellow eyes. The demon shrugged awkwardly.

“Er. They’re all the range in China. And I was getting a little tired of getting called a demon and subsequently being burned at the stake.”

“But you _are_ a demon,” Aziraphale pointed out, and then felt slightly bad about it when he saw the look on Crowley’s face, a small sort of surprised hurt, quickly hidden. Demon or not, Aziraphale supposed  Crowley still didn’t deserve the sheer brutality many humans— and angels, for that matter— were happy to bestow on him.

But he had to keep up appearances, didn’t he? Had to keep spewing the party line, until he finally started believing it again. He looked over at Crowley, at the impenetrable circles of grey hiding his eyes, and let out a small sigh.

“They’ll still stare, you know,” he said softly.

“I know,” replied Crowley, somewhat defiantly. “But they’re staring on _my_ terms now, aren’t they? Besides,” he added, “I rather think they’re going to catch on.”

He smiled disarmingly, let the tension bleed out of the air.

“Come on then, angel, are we going to get a drink, or are you going to hurry up and smite me?”

Aziraphale huffed and linked his arm with Crowley’s, supposing that the monks could wait.

“Drink,” he said firmly, steering the pair of them off to his preferred inn. “And then you can tell me all about your time in China.”

Crowley had been right in the end, Aziraphale supposed. Sunglasses— as they eventually came to be known— did catch on in the end, albeit several centuries later than he would have liked. Aziraphale had also been right, in that there were still stares, but gradually, the spate of incidents began to trickle off. Gradually, Aziraphale felt Crowley begin to relax a bit. They started spending more time in each other’s presences, which was easier to do if one of you wasn’t being inconveniently discorporated all the time, and it was… not unpleasant.

There were still instances, of course. The dreaded fourteenth century had been particularly bad. But things were, on the whole, far better than they had been.

At some point, Aziraphale had given in and started referring to Crowley as his friend without restraint, even if it was only to himself.

At some point, Aziraphale had realised quite how much his life revolved around the demon, and how much he cared about Crowley, and realised that _friend_ maybe didn’t fit quite right anymore either.

Not that he would ever tell Crowley. He didn’t dare, especially when Crowley so blatantly didn’t see Aziraphale in that way. Especially when, despite all the ways in which Crowley continued to surprise him, all the little, shining moments of distinctly un-demonic behaviour, and perhaps more compellingly, all of his own somewhat un-angelic behaviour, which came so easily and yet always left a bitter sort of taste in his mouth, he still wasn’t quite sure if Crowley _could_ see him in that way. If he was capable of it.

Crowley, Aziraphale was uncomfortably aware, was all he had, his only constant. And he could not, would not ruin that. And so he bundled up his feelings, and he loved Crowley in a quiet, eminently selfish way.

But he loved him nonetheless.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Crowley was in a bad way. They had a little celebration of sorts established for the end of centuries: no matter where in the world they were stationed, they would arrange to meet, discuss the past 100 years, and get thoroughly pissed, a tradition that had started after Aziraphale had found Crowley at the end of the fourteenth century, nigh on discorporated from alcohol poisoning, and decided he would join him.

Which was why, when despite the fact that they were now both living in London, Crowley didn’t show up, Aziraphale was rather surprised. And more than a little hurt. After sitting in wait for an uncomfortably long amount of time, Aziraphale had, somewhat irritably, collected up his coat and hat, and stormed his way over to Crowley’s Mayfair flat.

Aziraphale didn’t often visit Crowley’s flat, mostly because it felt slightly more like a showroom than an actual place where a person lived, all brand-new furniture that never seemed to be used and was replaced with an alarming regularity, in sharp contrast to the old-fashioned, easy familiarity of the bookshop. So Aziraphale felt slightly awkward as he padded down the soft navy carpet that led to Crowley’s flat, the heavy darkness of the corridor only broken by the occasional flickering oil lamp. Aziraphale rolled his eyes. Of course Crowley simply had to live down the most ominous-looking corridor Aziraphale had ever seen.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale knocked on the door, torn between trepidation and annoyance. There was no response, and so he tested the handle. The door wasn’t locked, and swung open at his touch , smooth and silent. Aziraphale went in.

It was dark inside the flat as well, almost dark enough that Aziraphale was tempted to assume Crowley wasn’t in, and to go on his way. But something drew him on, made him walk through the dark until he came to Crowley’s bedroom. This was wildly inappropriate, he knew, and there was no justification for it, not even within the extensive terms of the Arrangement. But Aziraphale was either angry with Crowley or worried for him, or possibly both, he hadn’t decided yet, and so in he went.

Crowley was sat up on the bed with his legs drawn tight to his chest, glasses off, staring wide-eyed into darkness. His expression did not change when he caught sight of Aziraphale, although his pupils widened slightly.

Aziraphale couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Crowley’s eyes, and he was both happy and dreadfully concerned about their sudden reappearance.

“Angel,” Crowley said hoarsely, voice low and uncertain. “Do you... I mean, do you even... am I... look, what do you think of me, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale blinked. But surely Crowley couldn’t mean…

“I— well, you know I care for you a great deal, my dear boy,” he said firmly, hoping this was noncommittal enough.

Crowley made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat.

“But I’m a demon.”

Aziraphale came and sat next to him.

“Yes, dear. And you have been for quite some time, now.”

“But it’s just—” in the half-dark, Crowley’s eyes were feverishly bright, almost burning. “It’s just, have you seen the _state_ of the world? All the misery, and the hate, and the death, and, and—”

“And very little of that is actually you,” Aziraphale said, hoping that this came across as vaguely reassuring. He didn’t know how to deal with Crowley like this. When Crowley was upset or frustrated with the state of things, which was often, he was loud, and blustering, explaining the reason for his upset with wild hand gesturing, usually over a glass of some sort of alcohol. Aziraphale understood that Crowley. This one, quiet and listless and almost _scared_ , his hands clenching the blankets so hard that his knuckles had gone white, was a new creature altogether.

“That’s _worse_ ,” said Crowley, very pointedly not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “Because if it was me, then at least there would be some sort of control, then at least I could stop it somehow, instead of feeling so bloody useless, but then, then whenever I do do something, I feel like _shit._ It’s just—” he looked up at Aziraphale, suddenly. “It’s all too much. All the time.”

Aziraphale swallowed painfully.

“It’s a new century, now,” he said, doing his best to suppress the quiver in his voice “It’ll— things will change.”

“A new century,” Crowley repeated with a quiet intensity. “Exactly. It’s just going to go on and _on_ , and build up and get worse and worse, and—” he broke off suddenly, his eyes wide and dark. Aziraphale very much wanted to take Crowley’s face in his hands, to hold him close.

He didn’t.

There was a beat of silence, and then Crowley sighed, a long, low thing, utterly without hope.

“I just want it all to _stop_ sometimes. To stand still for a moment.” Crowley toyed with the edges of his bedspread.  “I think— I think ‘m going to go to sleep for a little while, angel. Just until I feel a bit less… you know.”

Aziraphale did know. He also knew that ‘a little while’, to Crowley, was a somewhat relative term. After Shakespeare had died, the demon had slept for more than a _month_.

And when Aziraphale had left, that had been what he’d expected. About a month. He hadn’t been too concerned when that had become two months.

He was a little fed up by six months, and after a year, he was annoyed.

After two years, he’d decided, stubbornly, that he didn’t need Crowley’s company anyway, joined a gentleman’s club, and started to learn how to gavotte. It was an ongoing endeavour.

He hadn’t expected for Crowley to be gone for a full century. He’d grown so used to the demon’s presence that it took him a while to learn how to get by without him. But his loneliness was tempered by all of his new acquaintances from the gentleman’s club, and by Oscar, of course.

He was furious with Crowley all century, but when the demon finally made a somewhat sluggish reappearance in 1900, hair dishevelled and eyes obscured by a crooked pair of sunglasses, Aziraphale was just pathetically grateful to have him back.

He kept up with his human friends, and his occasional somewhat more-than-friends, until it became entirely too painful to do so. And then Crowley was there, wonderful, eternal Crowley, who always came back, in the end.

About a week after the world had, thankfully, failed to end, the pair of them were squeezed onto Aziraphale’s newly restored sofa, sharing a bottle of wine.

Aziraphale wasn’t thinking about the wine. Or the world. He was thinking about how Crowley’s hand had felt in his, the cool press of those long, slender fingers.

He thought he might like to hold it again. And this time, he did. Crowley looked surprised, but didn’t pull away. He squeezed back, and a dopey, earnest sort of smile spread over the angles of his face.

They sat like that for a while, unmoving and unspeaking, afraid to shatter this new, fragile thing between them. Then, with his free hand, Aziraphale very carefully reached up, and removed Crowley’s sunglasses. Crowley rolled his newly-exposed eyes somewhat impatiently— this was somewhat of a challenge, considering, but Crowley had perfected the art over the centuries. Then he leaned in and kissed him.

How had Aziraphale ever thought that Crowley’s eyes were yellow? They were like molten gold. They were the colour of the sun meeting the sea. They were the colour of a future that they might, now, impossibly, be able to reach for.

His pupils, Aziraphale noted somewhat smugly, were very wide indeed.

  
  



End file.
